


The Art of Frosting Cakes

by WhisperingOrchard



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Humor, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Marriage, No Angst, Parenthood, Slice of Life, Stream of Consciousness, pop culture references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-04 02:41:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhisperingOrchard/pseuds/WhisperingOrchard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean has heard that the "Engagement Period" before marriage can be one hell of a time, but between their clueless parents, their son's kindergarten troubles, and their friends' "genius" wedding plan, both he and Marco have a feeling that their engagement probably takes the cake. A story of expectation and acceptance. Domestic AU, humor-based.</p><p>Technically a continuation of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/961295/chapters/1883733">"The Art of Cutting Cookies"</a>, but can be read separately.</p><p>**THIS FIC IS ON HIATUS, POTENTIALLY DISCONTINUED.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art of Frosting Cakes

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back--as the summary says, this is technically a continuation of The Art of Cutting Cookies (link below), but if you have not read that fic and do not intend to do so, then here is a little bit of background information that may be useful for reading this story:
> 
> 1) Marco has a biological son named Nicolas (Nico for short). Nico's mother is Mina Carolina, who passed away in childbirth due to ill health. Jean was introduced into the boy's life when he was four.  
> 2) Jean and Nico did not hit it off well in the beginning, but have come to have what is, more or less, a healthy, father-son relationship (though it still has its road-bumps, and Nico still refers to him as "Jean").  
> 3) In this fic, Jean is 21 and Marco is 26. Jean is a college student working part-time at an Italian Restaurant titled Muro Maria, owned by Erwin Smith. Connie and Sasha work as waiter and waitress at the same establishment, while Eren is an apprentice in the kitchen under Levi's wing.  
> 4) Jean and Marco are presently engaged. They both planned their own proposal--Jean sold the engine of Marco's car to pay for his ring, which, needless to say, Marco was not overly happy about.  
> 5) The Art of Cutting Cookies ends approximately three months prior to this fic.
> 
> The original fic may be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/961295/chapters/1883733).  
> Apart from that, I hope you enjoy the fanfiction! Not sure how long it will be or how much I'll update it, since this is mostly just a fic to write when I need something lighthearted. (just watch this become my longest fic or something)
> 
> Beta'd by the lovely [Carlile](http://gokudera.co.vu/), whose writing is absolutely amazing (so you should go [check out her writing](http://archiveofourown.org/users/CarlileLovesAnime/pseuds/CarlileLovesAnime) ~u~).

They say that college graduation is supposed to be a momentous occasion—something to be cherished and remembered from its incidence to one’s deathbed. A celebration of concluding nearly two decades of school, of leaving behind grueling grades and a senseless social scene to join the workforce as a true, self-serving adult. Bearing a rayon gown and a symbolic square cap, each student is, henceforth, a member of society, molding their own lives just as they once molded globs of mixed Play-Doh not fifteen years prior. All of this may be true for some, and it is certainly the ideal situation under normal circumstances for any successful college student.

All Jean knows is that this gown is making him hella sweaty. 

Luckily for him, however, this lackluster ceremony has concluded at last; he reaches up and whisks the clunky black cap off of his head to toss it carelessly into the air—it soars for quite some time before landing a few rows down, hitting Eren Jaeger smack-dab on the back of the scalp. Score 1 for Jean Kirschstein—that wasn’t his intention, but like hell is he about to apologize or brush it off. 

He stretches his arms ahead of him and turns to follow his row out of the grouping of metal folding chairs, sharply inhaling the musty air permeating the auditorium with a wince; the girl in front of him has all but doused herself in what must be the strongest perfume in existence. His nose wrinkles in distaste, scrunching up for a moment as he redirects his head toward the row to his right in an effort to escape this gasiform poison. From this sudden motion, his eyes shift from the woman in front of him to the student—er, _former_ student—standing in the row behind his own.

“Dude, what’s up with your face?” Connie inquires, cocking a stringy eyebrow at his companion’s contorted expression. “Do you need to sneeze or something? Uh, ‘cuz, if you do, then look the other direction. There’s no way I’m letting you ruin my gown with your snot.”

“It’s just mucus. You’ll live.” To further his point, Jean leans across the row to nose once at Connie’s shoulder, snorting a few times in a mock excretion of snot before being shoved back into his own row; he begins walking again, but not without cupping a hand over the bridge of his nose as the lady in front of him disperses into the crowd at last.

“Not gonna lie, Jean; that was _really_ gay.”

At this, Jean merely grunts, slips out of the grouping of chairs, and peers behind his shoulder, standing in wait for Connie—the other male’s short stature is barely visible behind the six-foot-seven basketball player positioned directly in front of him. After a minute or so of dawdling in the mass of onyx gowns, Jean catches sight of Connie Springer; he approaches the other with a mild frown as he nibbles the inside of his cheek and wills away the last bit of perfume from his skin (he swears that the stench has since taken his own body victim in its fumy clutches). “Well, in case you haven’t noticed, I kind of _am_ ‘really gay’. Or at least ‘really bi’. So that literally doesn’t mean shit to me.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to act like it.”

“How do you _act_ bi? Not like I leaned over and kissed you or anything. It was the lady in front of me—like she was trying to start chemical warfare in here or something. I can still smell it, good god…” He pinches his nostrils shut with his thumb and forefinger in revulsion. “Like walking into Abercrombie.” 

Jerking his head toward the exit, Jean motions for Connie to follow behind him as he maneuvers his way around another grouping of gowned students. He is fortunate enough to have attended the rather small University of Trost, home of the Warriors, wherein the student body rarely exceeds 5000-or-so students. While the class is still considerably large, it consists of far fewer students than most universities of its sort, which is beneficial only in game-day parking and graduation. In times like these he is forever grateful that Marco has a car (with a fully working engine, now—needless to say, after a little quarrel about the ridiculous amount of money that Jean had spent on Marco’s ring [he had acquired it by selling the engine of Marco’s Cooper, which, in hindsight, was really fucking _stupid_ ], they decided to return both rings and pick out two [cheaper] matching bands together at a later date).

Subconsciously, Jean finds his gaze wandering lower as they push past the doors and into the grassy expanse outside the auditorium; his citrine eyes slide swiftly down toward his left hand, settling on the silver band that encircles his ring finger just above the knuckle. He always thought that the women in those lame-ass wedding shows were full of bull regarding the exhilaration of their engagement period, but… Well, while Jean is far from a giddy, giggling bride (thank god), the various facets of his domestic life have been particularly pleasant since either party popped the question. Don’t get him wrong, that had still been one of the most awkward moments of his life (just as Jean was about to ask for Marco’s hand, lo and behold, the older male decided to whip out a ring box then and there and sabotage his attempt at romance—they discussed it soon thereafter, but laughed it off soon enough [well, Jean was still humiliated for the vast majority of the evening that followed, but the engagement sex that followed soon made up for his discomfiture]).

(… Of course, then he had to explain to his fiancé why they couldn’t take the Cooper to drop Nico off at school the next morning).

(Needless to say, their relationship has not been without its ups and downs—and that’s the nicest way to put it).

“Wait up, will you?” Connie calls out to him, reaching forth to latch onto the shoulder of his gown. “Everyone’s over here. We’re gonna wind up in the parking lot if you don’t pay attention.”

Jean’s thoughts are tugged from the ring to his shorter familiar, and as he spins on his heels to follow Connie, he cannot help but get a bit lost in his own thoughts. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming…” he mutters in nonchalance, eyes flitting this way and that at his fellow acquaintances garbed in gowns of deep black—a sudden uneasiness churns within the chamber of his gut; this is the last time he will see a number of these folk. And, as much as he wants to deny it… he’s going to miss this. The work was grueling and his classmates were annoying as hell, but the life he has ahead of him is so foreign, so uncertain… It almost catches him off guard.

“Connie! Horseface!”

However, if there is one cretin among these credible individuals whom Jean will not miss—one cretin who could cover himself in hot tar, roll around in a pit of thumbtacks, and throw himself over the lip of an active volcano, all the while sporting a nasty case of chicken pox—it is Eren Jaeger, who seems to have worked up the _gall_ to approach Jean while he is lost in his own thoughts. Eren really ought to know better at this point in their antagonistic relationship; it isn’t as if he has never stepped up to Jean at the most inopportune times in the past. Though, in all actuality, _no_ time is an opportune time when it comes to Eren.

Simply because he _is_ Eren.

What? Don’t give him that look; Eren is _kind_ of a douchebag.

He is. It’s true.

…

Oh, nobody asked you.

Nevertheless, as Eren approaches ever-nearer, Jean’s urgent desire to leave a shoe-shaped indentation in the other man’s face is relatively short-lived, for as he turns to cast an indignant glare in Eren’s direction he notices the crowd following closely behind him—Armin, Mikasa (the _only_ person on this planet that can make that stupid cardboard cap look good), Sasha… and, yes, surely enough, there is Marco with Nicolas trailing not far behind.

Everyone’s really here—which, considering the fact that almost all of them graduated alongside him, isn’t too difficult to believe—and even Jean finds himself grinning a little uncontrollably at the sight. Alright, so he has never been particularly skilled in the “keeping friends” department, but the fact that these ~~losers~~ guys have stayed by his side this entire time—despite his awkward gawking at Mikasa, despite his daily routine of sending Eren an ill-conceived poem of deepest hatred, despite the fact that he accidentally cooked Armin’s parrot a few years ago—well, it’s enough to make his hardened heart melt.

And so, with a delightedly crooked smile that he hopes is not too unsettling, Jean follows Connie over to the grouping of friends and family with a sense of hope, a sense of happiness—something that ordinarily comes short-lived for the poor young man. Something could still go horribly awry, but in these few moments of peace, he could not be more content. 

“Jean!” Nico pipes up from beside his father as he shifts around Marco’s leg to bound up to Jean, a wide grin spreading across his features as he peers up at the other’s face. “We saw you on stage! And Eren and Armin and everyone, too!”

The smirk on Jean’s lips widens by the second. “Heh, did you see Armin trip over his gown?” 

The child’s head bobs in an overemphasized nod; a little giggle slips out from his lungs as he recalls the action. “Mm-hm. He looked really funny! But that’s not very nice…”

Sniggering at the boy’s words, Jean reaches outward and pulls him forward, hugging the kid to his side—his hand rests upon the top of Nico’s head and ruffles the mess of mocha strands that stick out this way and that beneath his fingers. He hardly cares that the boy is not his biological son—he mirrors Jean in personality far more than he does his actual father, and that’s as grand a bond as any. Besides, despite the first couple months of Sharpie-messages and Lego-sock-stuffing, they have warmed up to each other; things aren’t totally perfect, but he can’t help but feel this is the way it is meant to be. “Dang, kid, you’re getting tall.” To emphasize his point, he pushes (gently) down on the boy’s head with his palm. “You’d better start shrinking.”

“Jean, _stoooop,_ ” Nicolas whines and squirms from the unwanted touch, reaching up to flatten his tousled hair back down a bit. “Not around all these people…”

Jean can only roll his eyes at the child’s words. “Don’t tell me you’re hitting that stage already. What are you, four?”

“I’m almost six…”

“… Oh, right.”

Hey, just because he graduated with a computer engineering degree doesn’t mean that he’s overly observant 24/7. In fact, one might argue that, among his group of familiars, he is one of the least aware when it comes to such commonplace knowledge like the age of his own son. Heck, he wouldn’t have remembered graduation this morning if Marco had not, quite literally, taken the blaring alarm clock from the floor (where Jean had knocked it off in a defiant fit of slumber) and _held it up to his freaking ear and fuck had that hurt_ —it might have gotten the job done, but he has made a mental note to take his revenge tomorrow morning. Bodt won’t know what hit him, the sorry fool—

“This is a pretty nice diploma. Wow…” Marco speaks at last from his spot beside him, unfolding the sleeve and fully opening the certificate to observe it more closely. “ _This certificate hereby corroborates that Mr. Jean Florian Kirschstein—_ ” A stifled snicker flits out past clenched lips as he holds back one of those unpleasant little giggles of his. Ugh, sometimes Jean just wants to smack the smile off of his face and send it flying across the room. Better yet, all the way to China. With a boot—no, an ice skate. A frozen ice skate—absolutely soaked in the stench of blood and wet feet. “Your middle name is Florian? I didn’t know that…”

Okay—now he’s getting _two_ skates to the head.

“Oh, gimme that!” He lashes out and snatches the diploma from Marco’s hands, tucking it under his arm and turning to face the others as a hot blush blooms on his cheeks. “ _Maman_ is French and my sire is German. They chose it when she went into labor, so she was pretty stressed anyway, and _Florian_ fits both nationalities. So screw you.”

A small smile slips onto Marco’s lips, and as he folds his arms nonchalantly across his chest, he gives a simple shrug of the shoulders. “I never said I didn’t like it. I think it suits you just fine…”

“Quit flirting and get over here, _Florian_.” Eren’s shrill voice grinds its nails along Jean’s eardrums. “Are you coming to the graduation party or not?”

“Depends. Are you?”

Eren’s face grows all the more deadpan, and when he speaks once more, his voice carries an all new flatness to it. “I’m the one hosting it. Don’t tell me you forgot?”

“In that case, I would sooner kiss Armin.”

“W-Wait, what—?”

“No homo.”

“Jean, I hate to tell you this, but you’re very homo.”

“Oh, shut up, Marco…” 

Ah, yes, despite his graduation—despite his fairly new responsibilities as a father and fiancé—some aspects of Jean and his ludicrous life will never change.

“Yeah, I guess I’ll go.” Jean shrugs his shoulders indifferently, reaching up to readjust the sleeve of his graduation gown; he encloses the stitched edge in his fingers and tugs at it a bit, sliding it up his shoulder and gliding it back into a more symmetrical placement. “But nose-goes on bringing the beer.”

Somewhere behind Connie, Sasha raises her hand and a broad smile spreads across her lips—upon craning his neck, Jean spies her body at last; she sits cross-legged on the pavement behind Connie’s legs, waving her arm out to the side. The stiff graduation cap still resides atop her styled auburn hair. “I’ve already got the food and drinks covered!” A look of realization suddenly crosses her face, and she leans her body to the side to peer at Nico from her spot behind Connie. “Nico, c’mere! I’ve got something for you!”

The child bounds up to Sasha’s side in a heartbeat, eyes alight with eagerness. “Is it a Warheads?”

“Maaaaaaybe.” She gives a deep giggle at his facial expression, and with one final snorty bout of laughter, she clenches her hands into loose fists and places them both behind her back. “Left or right?”

“Um…” His eyes dart from her left shoulder to the right, as if trying to determine for himself if any hand is more or less likely than the other (which is entirely pointless, Jean thinks with a light roll of the eyes as he observes the two from afar—Sasha usually changes the hand if he gets it wrong anyway, so having him choose defeats the whole purpose of guessing). “Left!”

“Aaaaaand correc—huh?” She whips her hands out from behind her back and holds them out in front of her, palms up and fingers spreading wide—the little wrapped confection is nowhere to be seen. “Well, it was in the left…”

“Holy _dang_ , these things are sour!”

“Connie!”

Jean really regrets getting Nico so hooked on those sour little balls of evil; he never would have suspected that a few sour candies would cause such strife among his fri—well, yeah, his _friends_ , he supposes. He honestly doesn’t know what the hell these bozos are to him, technically. They just sort of… _are_. Sort of like hair lice—yeah, that’s it. They’re annoying as hell and hard to get out, but they aren’t about to kill him or anything. Most of them, anyway—he can’t help but wonder about Armin sometimes. He’d bet money on it, actually—Armin can’t remain perfect and angelic forever. One of these days, that boy’s gonna crack.

Nevertheless, as he steps back to let Sasha and Connie duke it out on their own, Jean cannot shake the strange happiness that twinges in his gut all the sudden. It’s not unwanted, but… well, it’s been far too long since he has felt this content with his life and his choices. All too often has he been left wanting more—wondering if his life is heading in the right direction, and for the first time in years, he feels genuinely satisfied with himself. Why, he daresay, if this were a Disney movie, and he was a devilishly handsome prince (well, more so than he already is, of course), then he very well might break into a spontaneous dance number right here and now. Look out world—college has Made a Man out of Jean and his brain has gone full Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah. Life is smooth sailing from here on out, Just Around the Riverbend—so long you Poor Unfortunate Souls still suffering through Calculus, Jean Kirschstein is going From Zero to Hero faster than you can say Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo. 

Then again, with the number of copyright violations that his mind has probably just committed, it might not be long before he’s singing “Supercalifuckmylife” from behind bars. He really needs to be careful about that.

“Oh yeah—Jean?”

He is shaken from his thoughts by the gentle placement of a hand upon his shoulder; his eyes flit to the right and cast a sly, sidelong glance in Marco’s direction as the older man moves nearer. “What?”

“You called in and set our appointment, right?”

“What appointment?”

Marco’s expression, understandably, droops a little at that clueless response. “So you _didn’t_ call in and get us a wedding planner yet.”

...

Was he supposed to do that…?

… Shit.

One would think, given the fact that Marco has been reminding him about planning their wedding for the past _month_ , that Jean would have had the capacity to take five minutes out of his day to call up a professional planner at some point. It’s not like Marco has been leaving sticky notes on the door of the refrigerator, or writing reminders on the whiteboard in the garage (thrice in the past week).

Oh, who is he kidding? He flat-out screwed up this time. There’s no lying to himself.

“… Nah.” _“Nah”_? Is that really the best he can do? Is he fucking kidding himself? Somebody just come and cut out his tongue right here—it’s not like he can ever use it properly anyway.

Fucking _“nah”_.

With a light shrug of the shoulders, Jean brushes off Marco’s fingers and cranes his head back to gaze at his lover with a light roll of the eyes. “I’ll get on it though. Tonight, when I get back or something. It can’t be that hard to find someone.”

~w~w~w~

It can, however, be a right chore trying to talk on the phone while absolutely _sloshed_.

And so, as Jean trapezes through the bedroom door with one hand clutching the doorframe and the other holding the phone awkwardly between his middle and ring finger, it takes little time for Marco to realize his fiancé’s current state of being.

“Jean?” he utters hesitantly and creases the corner of his page; he sets the paperback gently on the bedside table before peering up at Jean with a cocked bistre eyebrow. “… You didn’t drive back yourself, did you?”

At this, Jean snorts—he generally tries not to snort, as it only adds to the equine nature of his being, but this is the perfect time to snort. In fact, he daresay he sounded rather horsey, just then—this prompts a little snigger from deep in his lager-smoothed throat. “I’m not dead. Nobody’s dead. Except that dead raccoon on the side of the road. That was—” He cups a hand over his mouth and wills down a brief welling of vomit in the back of his throat. “—pretty dead.” Sniffing once, he saunters forward, smirking a warm, lopsided smirk in Marco’s general direction. “Has anyone ever told you that you look like a strawb’ry?”

The cringe on Marco’s face grows all the more evident, but nevertheless he rolls to the left, onto his back, and sits up—he rises from the mattress and approaches Jean with a cautious half-grimace. His hands lift and reach outward ever-so-slightly, placing palms on either of Jean’s shoulders and squeezing firmly to hold him in place. “Stop—swaying—”

“See?” A finger rises to prod haphazardly at Marco’s tanned cheek—his head lolls to the side as the derpy grin on his face widens further. “S’like you’ve got a bunch of seeds or something all over your face.”

“You’re going to poke me in the eye.” Despite his words, however, his tone remains airy and the defeated smile on his face shifts to a tender tugging of the lips. “C’mon, you should lay down and sleep this off. We have a big week ahead of us!”

Jean simply lets his head loll forward again, and as he staggers a bit further, he relinquishes his hold on the doorframe and instead leans the entirety of his weight against Marco’s chest, toppling awkwardly forward to bump his nose uncomfortably against the taller man’s shoulder. Thankfully, with his hands still clenching Jean’s shoulders, Marco manages to catch him before he sends them both tumbling.

“So…” Marco begins, shifting his body and hooking his arms under Jean’s armpits to drag him toward the bed. “Guess that means you had fun at Eren’s, huh?”

_“Jaeger!”_

“Shhh!” He should have known better. What was Marco thinking, bringing up Eren in Jean’s current state of drunken turmoil? “You’re going to wake Nicolas, you know.”

Nodding his head over-emphatically, Jean lets Marco haul him over to the mattress; his eyes roll lightly at Marco’s paternal instincts before proceeding to prattle on about various other matters that his fiancé probably doesn’t give a rat’s ass about. “Jaeger’s gonna get what’s comin’ to him, one of these days. He thought he could drink more than me—pfffahaha!” He barks out an obnoxious laugh. “Like he could outdrink _me_. He’s, like, five feet tall. Shrimpy schmoe…”

Prying the cell phone from his partner’s hand, Marco sets it on the pillow and gets to work; he ushers Jean down onto the bed and begins to undo the buttons of his shirt—no use letting Jean go to bed in his semi-formal clothing, right? “Sounds great! Though I wish you hadn’t driven home… You could’ve just called me and I would’ve gotten you.” He takes two fistfuls of fabric in his hands and, with a minimal amount of struggle on Jean’s part, tugs the shirt off of his shoulders. “Need me to brush your teeth for you?”

“Shaddup.”

“I’m serious.” A small smile graces Marco’s lips as he tosses the shirt into the hamper across the room. His hands ghost over the button of Jean’s slacks, but the younger man simply swats his hand away and attempts to do it himself in one last effort to retain his pride. “I’m just trying to look after you, that’s all. You can barely stand as it is.”

Jean’s shoulders shrug lazily in nonchalance. “I’ll brush ‘em later.” As his fingers finally manage to hook under the button of his pants, he shimmies a bit to scoot them off of his bottom while still sitting; he slides them down his legs and kicks them off with nary a care about where they wind up, and as such they land crumpled in the corner of the room. Inhaling a noisy, voice-laden breath, he flops backwards onto the mattress, neck dangling off of the side as he lay perpendicular atop the sheets. “Gimme my phone back, I need to call the planner.” To further emphasize his point, he flails his hand out to the side in the general direction of the pillow upon which his Android resides.

“You can’t call the planner _now, Jean_.”

Marco’s defiance catches Jean off guard, and he lowers his neck just enough to gaze over at his lover, utterly dumbfounded in his current state of drunkenness (hell, he really hates the term “dumbfounded”—he is far from dumb, and Marco did not find him dumb. He was not founded on a dumb principal. He’s totally smart—smarter than Armin, smarter than those dorky two-person cars. He’s super smart. If he were a superhero, that would be his power. Smartness. Smartassery. Smart powers. Yeahhh). “Why not?”

“Because it’s one o’ clock in the morning…” Marco mutters, slinking down onto the bed beside the other. With a tiny yawn, he rolls onto his stomach and folds his arms in front of him, resting his chin on them as he gazes sidelong at Jean with a sleepy smile. “It’s fine, really. We can call someone later. We’ll get this figured out eventually.”

Jean turns his face toward the other man with raised eyebrows—he blinks slowly, vapidly, as his hazy mind churns gears to process his words more fully. After a few moments of unbroken staring, he speaks again, lifting his right hand and gently rapping Marco on the temple with a knuckle. “You’re really friggin’ weird, y’know that?”

One of Marco’s brows lifts questioningly, but he finds an uncontrollable chuckle escaping him nonetheless. He shakes his head dismissively, teeth flashing white as he grins at the other’s absurdity. Jean tends to be either unbearable or downright bizarre when drunk, and this time is no exception. As a tiny sigh slips past his lips, he scoots his body a bit closer and closes the gap between them, however briefly, with a peck to the nose. “Come on, we should get to bed. You’re already going to regret drinking that much in the morning.”

“S’really hot in here, dammit. I hate summer. All the sun, and sunburns… hot… Hate it. Ulghh.” His cheeks are a rosy shade of red at this point, be it from the alcohol or the affection or the actual heat permeating through the cheap windows of their shabby little home. Jean has spent the past three months griping and whining about the old-fashioned, cruddy interior of their aged abode, though he has yet to sway his fiancé. The wallpaper is an atrocious shade of lilac, the countertops a stained off-white laminate... The couch and bed both creak like nobody’s business (which makes for some _very_ awkward nights, believe you him), the curtains are sheer and each set is slightly shredded at the ends, where Mina’s old cat once clung when stressed (between that and its poor health, the cat wasn’t around for long, apparently—which is all fine, as far as Jean is concerned, considering that his face and chest erupt in a nasty rash when in contact with the little cretins).

Maybe he could make a deal of some kind.

Let Jean fix up the house, and he’ll stop making crude shapes out of Marco’s pancakes when he cooks breakfast on Sundays. (That might do it, actually. After all, Marco _is_ a rather bitter about that—he has told Jean off a number of times, and he often has to cut up the stack as soon as it’s placed in front of him [mostly for Nico’s innocence’s sake]. He might have to try that in the morning).

Despite his drunken acrimony, however, Jean scoots himself nearer his partner and clambers carelessly over his back; he crawls over to the head of the bed and flops face-down onto the pillow—Marco is entirely trapped beneath his stomach. “Uh, Jean? I can’t get up.”

“As it should be.”

Regardless, he shifts in wobbly motions onto his knees and allows Marco to sit upright before collapsing forward into the pillow once again. The older man rolls his eye lightly and resumes his position on the left side of the mattress, tiredly rubbing his functional eye with the pads of his fingers. “Hey, Jean? Are you still feeling okay?”

“Hrmm?”

“I don’t want you to pass out.” One of his hands rises to rest on the other’s forehead, wiping away a small accumulation of sweat beads. “How much did you drink, anyway?”

“—just had some beers,” he grumbles out, eyelids slipping shut in an indolent exhaustion. “Dunno how many. ‘m fine as balls. Fine as _my_ balls.”

Yep, Jean is peachy.

Marco leans his ear further into his own pillow, retracting his hand and tugging the sheet up over the both of them. “Oh, Jean?”

“Whaaaat?” His tone grows ever-sourer. “I thought you wanted to sleep, Bodt-boy.”

“I almost forgot—your _maman_ called while you were gone.”

At the mention of his mother, Jean’s eyelids part widely once more, gawking across the mattress at Marco with an expression of utter uneasiness. _Maman_ Jocelyn Kirschstein (or _Fontaine_ , rather, her maiden name that she has used since ol’ sire Kirschstein up and left thirteen years ago) is the most outspoken, disagreeable woman that Jean has ever had the displeasure of being related to. It sounds downright awful to say such things, and it isn’t that he doesn’t love her—she did give birth to him and put up with his crap, he’ll give her that—but being within a mile of her for more than a few minutes is a little too much for him to handle. She’s harsh, judgmental, brutally honest… She also has a nasty knack of showing up at the worst times (we aren’t going to discuss the time that she discovered Jean masturbating in his room one evening when he was twelve—the very thought makes his spine tingle and his cheeks flush a vivid scarlet). 

It was almost like living with an older, female version of himself.

The thought makes him shudder again. Poor Marco doesn’t know what he’s got in store these next several decades—a middle-aged Jean does _not_ sound like a fun time, and even he cannot lie to himself about that, if his mother is any indication.

His father on the other hand—well, that’s a different story for a different day, preferably one where his mind is not under the influence of alcohol and his thoughts do not consist of his strawberry of a fiancé.

“You, uh…” Marco clears his throat, snapping Jean back into the present for a little while longer. “… You haven’t told her about our relationship yet, have you?”

“Nah.” His voice sobers up for a moment, however briefly, as a tiny frown tugs at his lips. “… Have you?”

Sighing gently, Marco shakes his head, smiling a bit sadly at the thought. “My parents don’t know yet, no. I honestly don’t even know _how_ to tell them, you know? Heh heh… Guess we’ll have to do that sooner or later, huh?”

Jean’s eyes shut tightly again as he buries his nose further into the soft cotton pillowcase. “We could just elope.”

“We can’t elope.” Marco shakes his head fervently, reaching up behind him to turn off the lamp dangling above the bedside table. “I can just imagine what would happen if we were suddenly _married_ when they came to visit…”

A short snort sounds from within Jean’s throat, but he says no more on the matter. All of this marriage business is getting to be a royal pain in the ass, if he’s completely honest (and, really, he’s Jean Frigging Kirschstein, so of course he’s being one hundred percent honest). All of the preparation that has to go into it, all of the unnecessary expenditures, all of the embarrassing social aspects of it all… He’d have no problem eloping. Or, heck, they could always be simple and get married in a courtroom. It’s not like he has to have some ultra-fancy-white-lace-ice-sculptures-of-a-cherub-with-Queen-Elizabeth’s-face wedding. They won’t be paying for a dress, sure (though Jean _definitely_ wouldn’t object to Marco wearing one of those gowns on their wedding night—but that’s beside the point), but everything else is still ridiculously pricey, and while he’s far from frugal, that many thousands of dollars isn’t exactly on his budget, considering he’s still little more than a waiter (and Marco, as an amateur cameraman, isn’t much better off). They’ll need a planner, tux fittings, a guest list—there are so many aspects that go into planning all of this that it almost seems like too much for two young men to handle on their own. He supposes the planner will help ease that burden, but he still can’t shake the uncertainty churning in the pit of his stomach.

(That, or the beer is finally catching up to him).

(Yep, yep, it’s definitely the beer).

(Ulghh, he feels sick).

For the time being, however, things needn’t be simpler. And so, curling his legs a little further, Jean allows his eyes to shut one last time before sweet slumber consumes his body.

All of that can be addressed in the morning.

~w~w~w~

Parties are only fun until the alcohol catches up on everyone.

 _Even Sasha,_ Connie thinks with a mild frown as he peers across the room at his snoozing friend, who fell asleep on Eren’s loveseat a few hours ago and has yet to awaken. An exasperated, vocal sigh forces its way out of his lungs as he steps over to the couch, glaring dismally down at Sasha’s form sprawled before him; he brings his leg forth and prods her arm with his knee, but she hardly budges. Did Sasha even drink anything? He’s pretty sure she didn’t. Maybe it’s just a post-meal nap or something—her family is into that kind of thing. In fact, anytime he’s slept over at the Braus household, her parents are usually asleep by eight o’clock—to be frank, it blows his mind, like, _what the hell?_ Sometimes he suspects they’re part lion or something—don’t lions sleep a lot? Yeah, they must. He’s pretty sure there’s a song about it—“the lion snores in the jungle” or something—he doesn’t really care enough to remember the lyrics right now.

Shrugging his shoulders in nonchalance, Connie knees her elbow one last time before turning away and peering around the family room of Eren’s house. It’s none too shabby, that’s for sure—and given the fact that it belongs to a (now former) college student, it’s actually kind of impressive. Much better than Connie’s rinky-dink apartment, anyway—better than Marco and Jean’s house, too (he can’t help but agree with Jean on this one—there’s a special place in HGTV Hell for that horrific abode). His eyes flit across the shag carpet, they settle upon Reiner, Bertholdt, and Annie, all sleeping in a huddle on the floor—Annie’s arm is draped lazily across Reiner’s forehead, and Bertholdt’s body is almost perfectly atop Reiner’s, save for his head (which dangles just past the outside of the other’s hip); Connie stifles a snicker at their slightly suggestive position and resists the _unbearable, nagging_ urge to snap a photo with his smartpho—

—pfft, you don’t think he’d just let an opportunity like this pass by, do you?

He whips his cell out and opens the camera app, raising it accordingly and taking a few pictures with thumbs tingling in enthusiasm. Blackmail is truly the finest form of control over others—and on Annie no less! While her position is far less compromising than Bertholdt’s, it may still prove useful in the future, and as such he saves each photo in his files and slips his smartphone into the back pocket of his slacks.

_“Two-four-six-o’-one~.”_

The minute his phone settles in his pocket, the ever-familiar notification tone resonates beneath the cloth of his pants. Rolling his eyes, Connie slides his hand back into his pocket and retracts the device, unlocking it and flipping straight to the message app—that tone is designated for one man and one man only. “Jean Valjean Kirschstein”—as he is listed in Connie’s contacts list—appears at the top of his cell’s screen as he scrolls down to the most recent message, sent at 2:06 a.m.

_“can’t sleep”_

Good lord, Jean lives with two other guys—can’t he blab about his insomnia to his frick-frack partner instead? Why is it that Connie is always his go-to guy for stuff like this? Jean has other friends, so why _him_? Well, he supposes that his next closest friend is Armin, and the blond has been playing a rather intense (boring as all hell) game of Monopoly against Mikasa and Eren for the past hour or so. Maybe he did text Armin, and the blond is too busy taking over the cardboard world as a wheelbarrow to answer. Either way, Jean has pestered him with a number of other incoming text messages, and as his phone continues to blare out _Les Mis_ numbers, he turns the volume down to “silent” and proceeds to read the rest before responding.

_“you free to talk”_

_“con-ster_ ”

“ _cap’ picard”_

“What is it Jean?”

_“oh cool”_

Connie swears that he can feel his brain cells deteriorating by the second—but, then, that might also be the buzz of the mudslide he drank a few hours ago. “Whats up man are you still drunk?”

_“nothing much. and not really. but now i’m barfing my guts out”_

“Do you actually need anything?”

_“do you know anything about planning a wedding? marco’s gonna kill me if i don’t figure out this wedding thing sometime soon. he wants ME to figure the plan out, so”_

“Dude why you?”

_“i insisted that I do it myself. because i’m a fucking idiot. and like hell am i gonna admit that i can’t do this because i can totally do this”_

Of the multitude of stupid conversations they have had, this probably takes the cake (at least, for this year—last year’s gay sex talk will be pretty hard to top, even if it was considerably brief). “Do I look married to you? How the eff am I supposed to know what goes into planning a wedding I dont watch those lameass wedding sho”

Well, shit. There’s their answer.

“Hold up Im gonna go talk to Mikasa.”

Clicking the screensaver on, Connie glances up from his phone and peers sidelong across the way and into the kitchen adjoined to the family room. Armin, Mikasa, and Eren sit at the kitchen table, Monopoly hotels and pastel currency strewn across its smooth mahogany surface; the look of despair on Eren’s face conveys the outcome of this game rather clearly, as Mikasa has already run out of money and, as such, is content to sit back and watch her two best friends duke it out in a feud between wheelbarrow and Scottie dog.

As such, Connie steps away from the couch and over to the kitchen, peering over Armin’s shoulder to get a clearer view of Mikasa. She’s a girl, right? She’s bound to know _something_ about weddings. “Hey, Mikasa? Got a sec?”

She glances up at Connie questioningly, nodding her head once and readjusting her scarf beneath her chin. “What is it?”

“Watch any good bridal shows lately?”

Her brows furrow in confusion at the sudden, random question—she shakes her head, however, just as Eren cries out in despair as, despite all odds, he manages to land on Boardwalk for the third time around the board in a row. A small smile graces her lips at Eren’s comical misfortune, but as she turns back toward Connie, she denies his inquiry with another short shake of the head. “I’ve never watched a bridal show.”

“What? For real?” Disappointment laces Connie’s voice. What kind of girl is Mikasa? Then again, he doubts Annie would be overly keen on watching those strange shows too, so he supposes the stereotype is little more than just that. Sasha does on occasion, he knows that for a fact—but then, once she falls asleep, it’s near impossible to wake her back up again. “Looks like Jean’s outta luck, then.”

“Jean?” Eren pipes up from the other end of the table, glancing curiously up at Connie as he outstretches a handful of colorful cash. “What, is Horseface having a problem with Marco?”

“Heck if I know, Eren. You know how Jean is when he texts.” Shrugging his shoulders, Connie scoots around Armin’s chair and takes a seat between Eren and Mikasa, whisking his smartphone out again to reread Jean’s texts. “He needs to plan the wedding, or get a planner. And he can’t do it himself because he’s puking and stressed or something—I don’t know why he thinks we can tell him what to do. None of us are married.”

Eren’s brow lifts inquisitively above his left eye as he tosses the dice out in front of him. “So why doesn’t he just… hire a planner? Wasn’t he going to do that in the first place?”

“Beats me, man.” With a light shrug of the shoulders, he passes his phone to Eren to let him read the messages. “I know he’d rather do it himself, since it’s cheaper and he’s not the best with people—”

“Ain’t that the truth…”

“—and he’s hungover, so who knows what he really wants?”

Glancing up from his hands (he has spent the past few seconds absorbed in counting his cash from Eren), Armin lets his large cornflower eyes settle on the phone clenched in Eren’s grasp. “Eren? Can I see that for a minute?” As Eren nods his head and slides the phone across the table toward the shorter male, Armin’s eyes scan the screen carefully, reading over each message sent between Jean and Connie before tapping on the text box at the bottom of the screen. “Let’s see… First, he’s going to need to set a budget…” His thumbs tap along the keyboard as he speaks; his tongue pokes out of the corner of his lips as his mind grasps at his basic knowledge of marriage plans. He knows he’s read a thing or two about these before, and that has to be better than nothing. “… and he needs to make a guest list. Oh! And book a venue…”

“Armin…?” Eren’s eyes widen in mild surprise—he doesn’t expect him to be overly knowledgeable on a subject like that; but, then again, it _is_ Armin. The guy practically has an encyclopedia for a brain. His lips upturn into an appreciative smile; Armin never fails to amaze him in times like these—the smile on Mikasa’s features mirrors Eren’s, though perhaps a bit more subtly.

“… and you should be able to find more information online.” Finishing his sentence, Armin reaches across and hands the phone to Connie, peering over at Mikasa and offering her the can of Pringles sitting on the edge of the table. “So, do you think that’s a good start?”

“A good start? Heh! You’re a freak-genius, Armin!” Connie’s finger hovers over the “send” button, though not before a look of inquiry appears on his mug. “Think that’s it, then? I mean, he still has to figure out the catering and stuff. And those two are hella busy all the time.” Ordinarily, he would hardly concern himself with the business of Marco and Jean, but given the fact that the latter is absolutely _helpless_ without him, he figures Jean would just ask for more favors at some point anyway.

A thoughtful look crosses over MIkasa’a face; her dark eyes light up in contemplation. “Well…” she begins, “I’m not sure what exactly we can do, but among all of us...”

“—what if we planned it for them?” Eren finishes, glancing in her direction with a large grin as he reads her idea; she blushes a quiet pink in response, though gives an appreciative nod. “Can we do that though? I mean, that’s a lot for us to handle, too. It’d be cheaper though, you’re right about that…”

Nibbling on his lower lip in thought, Armin bends over and picks up a notepad from the floor (they had played a rather intense game of dominoes earlier and had yet to pick up all of the materials), pulls a pen out of his pocket protector, and clicks it determinedly. “Well… We would need a venue. Neither of them are really religious, so I guess… maybe a hotel lobby? Or some kind of reception center? That might be a little problematic, but other than that…” His expression positively _lights up_. “We might actually have most of this covered. Eren, you and Levi can cook, right? And if I talk to Erwin about it, maybe we can even have the _Muro Maria_ cater!”

“That might work…” Eren mutters, brows knitting in thought. “I don’t know if he’d give us an employee discount, though, and it would be really expensive without it.”

Nonetheless, Armin jots it down on the pad of paper, licking the tip of the pen a few times before it begins to write at last. “Well, it’s something to try at least. That’s better than nothing for now. They can make the guest list and the wedding party themselves… Same goes for the budget… I can take photographs… Hey, Mikasa, can you pull up a wedding checklist on your phone?”

As Armin files through the extensive list of necessities, Connie finds himself smirking ever-wider at the prospect of it all. An entire ceremony—all concocted, planned, and made possible by the likely wedding party themselves! The idea strikes him as both exciting and potentially curious—considering the people who will likely be involved in this grand project, things could get very interesting with regards to both the betrothed couple and the friends and acquaintances entangled in the basic skeleton of the plan. A part of him, however small, is incredibly intrigued by the prospect of what they are about to take on and all of the prospects that will accompany it.

He would also bet on his life that Jean does not see this coming.

His eyes drift downward toward his phone, where Armin’s message remains unsent in the text box. With a light half-shrug of the shoulders, he picks up the device and begins typing up a final part to the message that reads “Surprise Valjean were planning your wedding so stop freaking out about marriage and get back to puking”.

Simple, to the point—he clicks send just as Sasha approaches from behind, rubbing frantically at her right eye in an attempt to more fully wake herself up; her other hand covers her mouth in a wide yawn. “Hey guys… Hm? What’re you all doing?”

“You’re looking at the new wedding committee for Jean and Marco.” A sly grin creeps up onto Connie’s mouth as he leans his head back over the chair to look at her. “What do you wanna be in charge of? Oh, hold on, Jean just texted me back…” He glances dismally back down at the screen, eyes settling in on the white message box that pops up at the bottom—each word in the little bubble is large and caps-locked, a strange contrast from Jean’s usual lowercase typing style.

_“WHAT.”_

_“SHIT THAT’S NOT WHAT I ASKED FOR. CONNIE WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?”_

_“CONNIE!”_

Shrugging his shoulders in a dismissive fashion, Connie presses the power button and puts it into sleep mode, ignoring the pulsating light at the top of the phone that indicates an incoming call. There’s no use arguing with Jean over this right now—not after Armin has gone through all of this effort trying to figure out these plans.

Besides, this is infinitely more entertaining.

Unfortunately, however, Mikasa’s phone vibrates in her hands suddenly, and she holds it up to her ear to listen. The faint sound of Jean’s frantic voice sounds from the device, mostly incomprehensible to all but Mikasa as she winces ever-so-slightly at Jean’s panicky, hissing voice (it is early, after all, and he’s probably trying to keep quiet out of fear of waking Marco). “Jean, Armin’s the one planning all of this,” she speaks at last, keeping a level voice as she peers across at Armin’s pad of paper. “He wants to help in any way that he can.” A pause. “No, it’s not Connie.”

At last, after a few more moments of silence on Mikasa’s part, she hangs up the phone and places the cell back on the tabletop. “He says you can plan everything, on two conditions.

“Firstly,” she begins, picking a stray piece of fuzz off of her sleeve. “Armin is in charge of everything.” In response, Armin nods his head with a small smile. It only makes sense, really, since Armin is the next closest to Jean and has a responsible, sensible head on his shoulders.

“Secondly… We can't let Marco know.”

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: THIS FIC IS NOW ON HIATUS. I SIMPLY HAVE FAR TOO MUCH GOING ON SO FAR TO REGULARLY UPLOAD FICS HERE, SO FOR THE TIME BEING, I APOLOGIZE--BUT DO NOT EXPECT AN UPDATE ANYTIME SOON.
> 
> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!
> 
> If you wish to keep up with me and my writing, you can track the tag "fic: the art of frosting cakes" for writing updates, exclusive facts, etc. Any posts about the fic can also be tagged as such, if anyone ever has anything to say. You can also follow me on my tumblr blog, "ascensionablaze.tumblr.com".
> 
> Thanks for reading~!
> 
> ~ Lorelai  
> P.S. I mean nothing against anyone with the name Florian. I actually kind of like that name. c:


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